Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Venezia
– Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore - Le Stanze del Vetro – Fulvio Bianconi at Venini
Exhibition. The exhibition, curated
by Marino Barovier, until January 10th, at the Stanze del Vetro, shows over 300
works of the innovative graphic designer, illustrator, caricaturist, Fulvio Bianconi,
one of the most prolific artists to work with famous glassworks during the
Fifties, he designed pieces that would become true icons of Murano artistic
glassmaking.

Above.
Fazzoletto Vases – 1949-1950. The famous handkerchief vases was the result of
the personal and direct exchange of views between Bianconi and Paolo Venini and
pieces were soon acquired by museums of decorative artsas fine example of Murano artistic
glassmaking.

Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini. Marino Barovier curator of the exhibition, it is his
fourth exhibition dedicated to the history of the Venini glassware company, organized
by Le Stanze del Vetro, a long-term cultural initiative launched by Fondazione
Giorgio Cini and Pentagram Stiftung devoted to the study and the promotion of
the art of glassmaking in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini – Fasce di Colore - bands of colors – 1953. Bianconi focused
on pieces with sophisticated shapes, characterized by strong colors, designing
striking works, some of which sum up the enthusiasm of the “fabulous” Fifties,
and later became true icons of Murano glassmaking.

Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini – Forati or Buchi – holed or with holes – 1951-1952. In
designing this series Bianconi tackled the theme of the “vase with a hole”,
inspiredby Henry Moore.

Photograph courtesy Le
Stanze del Vetro

Fulvio
Bianconi - Zebra with Monkey- opaque poly-chrome glass 1948-49

Fulvio Bianconi – With applied
Tesserae and Pezzati – 1950-1954

Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini – A Macchie – with patches – 1950. Among the subjects are
also the master glass-makers themselves depicted with blow pipe, perhaps the
artist’s homage to the makers of his glass pieces.

Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini – Mermaids, Decoro a Rete, Nudes – 1950. During this period
Bianconi produced a series of artifacts of a figurative kind, some dealing with
marine subjects (mermaids and fish) and others developing the theme of the
female body. Many of these pieces are characterized by a technique consisting
of an applied netting of lattimo threads.

Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini - Commedia dell’Arte – 1948.The figurines of the Commedia del Arte, Italian popular theater are one
of Bianconi’s most characteristic productions for Venini. Returning to the
Murano tradition of figurines, which had been particularly fashionable in the
1930s, the artist proposed a playful and iconic re-interpretation, dealing in a
quasi-caricatural spirit with the theme of the maschere (stock characters of
Italian popular theatre), which at the time had been a popular theme in
artistic circles.

Friday, October 23, 2015

Possagno
– Asolo and Crespano del Grappa: Venere Nelle Terre di Antonio Canova – Exhibitions. Three
exhibitions, entitled Venus in the Land of Antonio Canova, until April 24,
2016, in three different small towns in the Treviso foothills, Possagno, Asolo
and Crespano del Grappa pay homage to the figure of Venus, as depicted bygreatest
neoclassical sculptorAntonio Canova, in honor of the loan of Antonio Canova’s Leeds
Venus. The magnificent marble sculpture
of Venus emerging from the bath, arrived directly from Leeds in Great Britain,
it was sculpted for an English
nobleman in 1817-20, and is placed in Canova’s home, now the Museo e Gipsoteca Antonio Canova in Possagno. It majestically takes final stage of
the exhibition that coils within the museum, where the visitor can admire and
examine all the “Venuses” that Canova sculpted, from the Le Grazie, (see below)
the Dancers, Dirce, Najade and Pauline, as well as, his plaster casts, and
the original models that Canova produced before carving, his paintings and his
memorabilia.

Possagno:
Venere nelle Terre di Antonio Canova. In front of the Museo
e Gipsoteca Antonio Canova, Franca Coin, President of the Fondazione Canova,
together with the three mayors of Possagno, Asolo and Crespano del Grappa,
welcome guests at the opening of the exhibition Venus in the land of Antonio
Canova. “For this occasion, we wanted to represent all three locations of this
magnificent region, which boasts the creation of the works of the sculptor, the
locations are all “dressed up” to create an art itinerary to intrigue visitors; both for the works that are on show and for the places that
are home to the three exhibitions, of this ideal path of art: Asolo, Possagno
and Crespano del Grappa. These three small-town gems are set in an environment,
the Asolo and the Monte Grappa foothills, of which the charm andthe beauty are often poignant. " Franca
Coin stated.

Above. Franca Coin and the mayors of Asolo, Possagno and
Crespano del Grappa, in the background the Tempio Canoviano.

Museo
and Gipsoteca Antonio Canova.In the
square, in front of the museum, “drawn” in the cobblestones, is the plan of the
Tempio Canoviano, above, designed by architect Toni Follina.

Museo e Gipsoteca Antonio Canova. The museum of
Antonio Canova is lodged in his birth-house, where a complete view of his art
and his life can be admired. Here his memory is preserved thanks to his
stepbrother Giovanni Battista Sartori. Today, this museum, collects almost all
his plaster cast models, his terracotta scale models, drawings and paintings,
they constitutes a necessary reference point for all the museums of the world
that jealously preserve his marble masterpieces.

Note.The famous Canova "dots" on the plasters
are the immediate tacks (Repere), units of measurement, necessary for the work,
of the famous sculptor, to be translated from plaster cast sculpture into
marble.

Note:
In The Museo Correr in Piazza San Marco, Venice, The Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, in collaboration with the
support of Venice International Foundation, Friends of Venice
Italy and the Comite Français pour la Sauvegarde de Venise, presented the
“Sublime Canova” project, aimed at the restoration of the precious section
dedicated to Antonio Canova in the museum, with the intent to allow full enjoyment of Beauty,
Harmony and Purity emanating from the works of Antonio Canova.

Franca
Coin president of the Fondazione Canova and Mario Guderzo, director of the Museo
e Gipsoteca Antonio Canova

Around
the fabulous Leeds Marble on loan to the museum, Mario Guderzo, director of the Gipsoteca, has created a real show-path, offering the many testimonies
that Antonio Canova left around the theme of Venus and, more generally, of the
female nude. "The theme of beauty is inherent to Canova says Guderzo.
There is never anything vulgar in the bodies, whether they are young women or
young male bodies; they are portrayed with equal passion. Canova loved beauty
and transferred it into perfect shapes staying true to real form.”

Asolo
– Museo Civico - Venere nelle Terre di Antonio Canova. The
cutting of the ribbon at the Museo Civico in Asolo, Franca Coin, president of
the Fondazione Canova with the mayors of Possagno, Asolo and Crespano del
Grappa the three towns, hosting the Venus in the Land of Canova exhibitions,
until April 24, 2016 and closely associated in the life of Antonio Canova.